Vaughan, Lehman share lead at Hualalai

KAUPULEHU-KONA, Hawaii » For the first few hours of the 33rd Champions Tour season Friday it looked like lights out at the $1.8 million Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.

Birdies were flying and eagles landing as the seniors went low early. Reality hit in the form of 15 mph afternoon breezes.

After several golfers soared then failed to catch Bruce Vaughan at 7-under-par 65, reigning player of the year Tom Lehman birdied the final hole to grab a share of first.

Loren Roberts, Brad Faxon, Jay Haas and Corey Pavin, who is looking for his first win on the senior tour, are tied for third a shot back.

Roberts won here in 2006, setting the tour’s scoring record with a 25-under total. He has 19 straight sub-par rounds at Hualalai, which has been the Champions’ easiest layout eight of the past nine years.

The leaders are a study in contrasts, and not just because Vaughan went out at 9:10 a.m. Friday and Lehman, in the last group, 3 hours later.

Lehman, 52, won three times last season and Vaughan, 55, is not even exempt. The former fireman from Hutchinson, Kan., got into this tournament of champions because of his win at the 2008 Senior British Open.

"I’m just playing the majors this year and will try to Monday qualify and stuff," he said. "It is what it is."

It was fabulous Friday, from the moment he birdied the first hole for the first time in four trips to Hualalai. He mostly missed the wind that picked up as Lehman made the turn and led the field in putting with 12 on each side. Vaughan’s only bogey came on the 16th hole, when he got caught below the lip in a fairway bunker.

He rallied with birdies on the final two holes for his lowest score on the Champions Tour by two shots. It might have been his rare week of practice in Phoenix last week.

"In the past I haven’t done that," Vaughan said. "I’ve been home killing things. The first year I came here and I was the only guy who was white. Everybody else had a suntan. I go, ‘This doesn’t look good,’ so I went to Phoenix and practiced. I think it helped."

Lehman, anxious to play in the last group today, drained a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole for his 65.

It is the first time since 2003 that the first-round leader shot higher than 64, but even with the afternoon’s quirky Kona winds, Hualalai was typically gracious.

All but five of the 41 golfers shot par or better and the average score was 69.610. The easiest hole was the par-5 10th (.927 under par), where Lehman drained a 20-foot eagle putt during his bogey-free round.

He played the par 5s in 5 under, describing Hualalai as having "more bogeys out there today than normal."

"It wasn’t like you couldn’t make birdies, but it was easier to make bogeys…," said Lehman, who was second to John Cook here last year and fourth in his Mitsubishi debut a year earlier. "The wind was bringing some of those bogeys into play."

Lehman is the first to be named player of the year on the three major men’s tours, earning the honor on the Nationwide in 1991 and the PGA Tour in 1996. Last year he won three times and finished top 25 every week but one to be named the Champions Tour player of the year.

"The best part of the season for me was just that it was so steady from start to finish," he said. "That’s always been the part of my game I could do, beat people with steadiness.

"I don’t feel there’s any pressure to have to do anything spectacular this year at all. I feel like if I just keep practicing and working and playing the way I can play and continue what I’m doing … I’ll see what I get."

Dan Forsman and Michael Allen share seventh at 67. Six others are another shot back, including John Huston and Bernhard Langer.

Huston played the final four holes in 3 over. He and Faxon are making their debut in this event, which is open to champions from the past two years and major champions from the past five.

Eight more golfers, including Pavin, received sponsor’s exemptions. This is Pavin’s third straight start at Mitsubishi and his bogey at the 11th ended a bogey-free streak of 74 holes.

Cook, who beat Lehman by two shots here last year, shot 69.

Mary Bea Porter-King, a founder and president of the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association, will receive her award as the PGA First Lady of Golf Thursday at the PGA of America Awards Ceremony on the mainland.

It can be seen live at pgamediacenter.com/videos/2011_pga_awards.cfm.

There also will be a banner on pgalinks.com.

The program begins at 12:30 p.m. Hawaii time and Porter-King is the first honoree.

Rocco Mediate is among the rookies eligible for the Champions Tour next year. He turns 50 in December and Vijay Singh follows in February.

This year’s class includes Duffy Waldorf and Gene Sauers. The 2014 class will have Davis Love III, Paul Goydos and Lee Janzen.

For every "like" on the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open Facebook page between now and when the tournament ends Jan. 29, Farmers will donate money to the March of Dimes.

The donations are between $10 and $50,000 and will be aimed at helping premature babies survive. The site is facebook.com/farmersinsuranceopen.

The tournament is Jan. 26-29 at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC SCORES